Tuesday, August 25, 2020

The doom of neo-Confederacy has started - United Parcel Service (UPS) doesn't want to locate facility in town with Confderate monumentt

The following link is to a story is about a giant corporation, UPS, which doesn't want to locate major facility in town with Confederate monument. 


In earlier blog postings I talked about how as Confederate monuments went away the pressure on the few towns still having them would increase. One of the factors would be that businesses would not want to locate there.

This was my first blog on the process. 

This was a follow up blog. 

However, it seems that I really missed some aspects of the economic forces that drive the elimination of Confederate monumnets at a much faster pace.  

The thing I missed is that corporations aren't going to be concerned sometime in the future that a town is one of the remainging towns with a Confederate monument, but instead they are concerned right now, even if most rural towns might currently be keeping them or a large fraction of towns are keeping them.

Perhaps they can understand that though it is common now, in two or three years towns keeping Confederate monuments might be uncommon and they don't want to be caught having invested in such a town with a Confederate monument.

Ironically this concern by corporations will drive a change in which few towns will have Confederate mouments. 

The fact that a major corporation like UPS doesn't want a Confederate monument in a town they are considering locating a facility in will be noted by every town's chamber of commerce and every economic development board. The competition to be the location site for facilities from major corporatitions is fierce. 

Yes, the local interests groups probably don't want to get into this fight and wish it would go away, but they also realize that it is an issue that will have to be faced sooner or later, so they might as well do it sooner. They don't want to be facing it when a major corporation is considering them and protests and potential violence scares away the corporation, and they certainly don't want to be finally addressing it after they have lost out on one or more major corporations locating a facility in their area. 

They also have to consider that the other towns competing with them to get facilities located in their town will be considering removing a statue also, and what the consequences of these competing towns getting their statues removed before they get their statue removed. 

Having the business interests initiating the proccess behind the scenes has the advantage of the removal being done faster and with less public controversy than having it started by a series of protests met by counter-protestors with guns. 

The counter-protestors with guns are a surprise unexpected factor to get rid of Confederate monuments. If you wanted Confederate monuments to have a negative association, the counter protestors are about the best you could imagine. There is the old cliche', "With friends like these, you don't need enemies." 

Also, the counter protestors with their guns are not really wanted by any town. Some towns might decide they want to get rid of the monument so these guys don't show up in their town anymore and be in the media being shown carrying around large firearms in the town square. 

This pressure to remove the monuments is added to the pressure that anti-monument protests apply to a city. If the protests continue, after awhile the city is known primarily for its clinging to a Confederate monument.  That is what people will think of when they think of that town. 

The protests are likely the thing that got corporations like UPS not wanting to move to a town with a Confederate monument. They don't want to be stuck in a town and try to recruit talent to move to a town known for loving the Confederacy.



Wednesday, August 19, 2020

United Daughters of the Confederacy monuments are going to be going down. UDC's history of praising the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is getting known.

The link to the article about the Cooke County commissioners refusing to take down a Confederate monment is here.

https://www.dallasobserver.com/content/printView/11936116

What is important about this article is that it makes public in a big way the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) practice of praising the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). 

Also, each photo mentions me as the source so readers know how has this book and also know that I am willing to share information about the book and photos of the book. I will put the same photos at the end of this blog posting. 

I can tell you that there has been considerable interest in Texas groups which are working to bring down monuments elsewhere in this material. People are reading the Weatherford paper I wrote with keen interest.

http://templeofdemocracy.com/weatherford.html

Of course the usefulness of this information isn't limited to Texas. Other people in other states will realize that a history showing the UDC praise for the KKK and saying that the KKK was the great accomplishment of the Confederate solider during the time period when they were putting up Confederate monuments really shows what these monuments are about. People who might want to make excuses for the Confederate monuments won't want to be too close to KKK issues. 

I plan on leting them know about the other KKK book endorsed by the UDC. 

By the way, the Dallas Observer articles in which I am mentioned by name can be found at the following link: 

 https://www.dallasobserver.com/search?keyword=sebesta

They didn't have this as a photo, but they quoted it.
It is hard to beat this for creepiness. 


Saturday, August 08, 2020

Bringing down the Confederate monuments across Texas and elsewhere. Using Weatherford, Texas as example and to supply resources

 There are efforts across Texas to bring down Confederate monuments. There are so many efforts happening at the same time I have adopted strategies to help all of them at once. 

I am taking Weatherford, Texas, which is west of Fort Worth, Texas as my test case.

I wrote this essay for them and given it to them.

http://templeofdemocracy.com/weatherford.html

It is about the Weatherford UDC praising the Reconstruction KKK and I place it in context of the national neo-Confederate groups praising the KKK. 

The importance of this to the rest of Texas and even beyond Texas is that I supply the broader context in such a manner that you can just remove the Weatherford component and put in your local UDC pro-KKK information.

Almost any UDC chapter in the 1910s was likely promoting pro-Reconstruction KKK material. By doing some simple online research you can get that information and put it in my Weatherford essay and have an essay for your town. So iother counties where there are efforts underway to remove the Confederate monuments can take this essay and swap out the Weatherford component and swamp in their local UDC pro-KKK component. 

This essay allows me to show people where to do research to find stuff like this, but more importantly that there is stuff to dig up.




Wednesday, August 05, 2020

Getting press attention concerning streets, schools, and other things on the landscape.

Though my writing on Landscape Repartions doesn't confine itself to streets and schools named after Confederates, it obviously applies to Confederate named schools and streets. 




and


I have started to share these news articles with academic groups. I think others will have insights that I have overlooked. 

People have found this paper on the struggle over street renaming in Dallas very informative. 


The page also has a review of Dallas street renaming code and a paper showing how the ideas behind the street renaming procedure are nonsensical. I think these papers will serve as an example for others in other cities to critically examine the municipal code about renaming streets. 

When most of the Confederate monuments are gone this will be the next stage, though when most of the Confederate monuments are gone it is likely that a lot of school names will have been changes as well as street names. The process doesn't need to be sequential, though given that taking down Confederate monuments will take up some time, likely there will be a delay as to when schools and streets will receive attention. Though mobilizing to take down Confederae statues might build groups that will then pursue changing the names of schools and streets. We will have to see. 

Wrote to the U.S. Military to stop the Sons of Confederate Veterans involvement with the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps JROTC

Nearly two weeks ago I wrote the U.S. Military leaders and every member of the Dept. of Defense Board on Diversity and Inclusion to not allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) to be involved with the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC). It was a total of 25 certified letters with return post cards. 

The letter is online at 


Or you can download it from Scribd at this link. 


I put online information about the SCV. 

The letter has links to this resource also. 


If that doesn't realize that dealing with the SCV is scary there is provided in the letter a link to this website. http://www.kennedytwins.com/

Obviously if they allow the SCV involvement with the JROTC to continue the entire DOD Board on Diversity and Inclusion becomes a joke. Responsibility for colluding with SCV is now borne by the entire U.S. Military leadership. 

The SCV planning to try to meet with the Dept. of Defense to overturn the ban of the Confederate flag by the U.S. Military. I think my letter will have the Dept. of Defense think twice before touching the SCV with a ten-foot pole. 


The SCV is trying to put on their best face in this press release, but I think the background information I provide shows their real face. The fact that they think they have any chances of engagement with the U.S. military besides the military talking to them solely for the purpose of humoring them and keeping the SCV from being a nuisance shows how out of touch they are. 

The U.S. military depends on recruiting young people to join the U.S. military. Young people, in particular those that might choose to go into the military, are in a large part minorities. They are those what will need the educational opportunitiees that the U.S. military affords. They are the ones who often don't have good opportunities otherwise. 

To these minorities the Confederacy is not an attractive thing and hinders recruitment. Whatever polls might say about public opinion regarding the Confederate flag in regards to the public in general, it isn't very popular with young people who the U.S. military hopes to enlist.

Recruiting likely is not going to be helped when the general public finds ot that the DOD is working with neo-Confederates and are the means by which they are insinuating themselves into public education. Parents are likely to be aghast that neo-Confederates are getting involved with their schools. 

The military also has a huge budget and needs support from the general public and they also need to look to the future as to hope much support they will have in ten an twenty years among a public in which fondness for the Confederacy declines steeply with age. 

The letter mentions that the United Daughters of the Confederacy has a medal they are giving to JROTC cadets also. 

I also mention that I am focusing on this one way of multiple ways the U.S. military works with neo-Confederate groups. I suspect that they will likely be checking into everything they do involving neo-Confederate groups. 

I also think that their strategy will be to end all programs involving neo-Confederates in a hurry before I can make a public issue about it. If they don't, a public campaign will likely get them to end the program and additionally allow me to educate the general public what type of people the SCV are. 

I am am somewhat swamped helping a lot of groups on a lot of projects, but I am making time to work on opposing the SCV.